That race matters in the aggregate is a recurring theme here. State-level NAEP results evince this. Simply knowing the racial composition of a state 'explains' 72% of that state's performance. By contrast, per-pupil expenditures, teacher salaries (both adjusted for cost-of-living; without doing so, the relationship is even more feeble), and average classroom size combined explain a mere 15% of how a state fares, and even that figure is just outside 95% confidence (with a p-value of .06).